This readme provides an overview of the replication files for "Is delayed mental health treatment detrimental to employment?"

Roger Prudon
Last updated: 17 April 2025

Data availability:
The paper is based on proprietary data provided by Statistics Netherlands. 
To gain access to the data, researchers must work at an institution that has been granted institutional access rights. Institutional access rights can be requested by emailing microdata@cbs.nl.
Once institutional access right have been granted, researchers can request access to data on a project basis. Read more about the entire process here: https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/our-services/customised-services-microdata/microdata-conducting-your-own-research
The author is happy to provide assistance in requesting access to the data.

Statistics Netherlands Datasets:
Note that Statistics Netherlands frequently updates datasets. This changes both the names of the files, and the actual data contained in them, which might affect the results of this replication package.
The list below describes the datasets used:
1. GGZDBCGELEVERDZORGPROFIELTAB/GGZDBCZRGPROFIELHOOFDDIAGTAB: Contains information about all mental healthcare treatment related activities, including the date of treatment, the amount of treatment received and the type of provider
2. GGZDBCTRAJECTENTAB/GGZDBCTRAJECTENHOOFDDIAGTAB: Contains information about all mental healthcare treatment trajectories, including the first moment of contact and the diagnosis
3. GBAADRESOBJECTBUS + VSLGWBTAB: contains information on municipality of residence
4. GBAPERSOONTAB: Municipal register containing demographic characteristics (age, gender, migrationbackground)
5. HOOGSTEOPLTAB: Contains educational attainment
6. ZVWZORGKOSTENTAB: Annual healthcare spending as covering by basic healthinsurance
7. SECMBUS: Indicators for the receipt of various type of social benefits and employment
8. POLISBUS + SPOLISBUS: Contains information on all employment contracts, including labor earnings and working hours
9. Wijk_en_Buurtstatistieken: Contains information about all municipalities in the Netherlands
10. MedicijnTab: Contains information for all prescriptions covered by basic health insurance on ATC4 level. Note: For this paper, statistics Netherlands has provided custom information including the exact date prescriptions were filled for mental healthcare related drugs. These files, called "9821_Lancaster_..." have to be requested separately.

Scripts:
All scripts have been run within the remote access environment of Statistics Netherlands on R Version 4.4.0
The scripts should be run in the order as described below. Total computational time is approximately 14 days
The replication package contains the following scripts:
1. ScriptSection3and4: Loads in raw data and constructs sample of individuals waiting for mental healthcare in the netherlands. Constructs control sample using propensity score matching. Constructs time series of employment outcomes for both sample and performs event-study analyses of Section 4 of the paper
2. ScriptSection5: Performs main IV analyses illustrated in section 5 of the paper. 
3. ScriptSection5Placebo: Performs additional IV analyses on 2 different placebo samples. First part uses the control sample of Section 3 as a placebo sample. Second part uses individuals who seek treatment but drop out from the waitlist before treatment commences as a placebo group.
4. ScriptSection6: Computes differences in waiting times based on background characteristics, as illustrated in section 6 of the paper.



Output:
Intermediate files and results are saved in the IntermediateOutput folder.
Final Output, including all tables and figures reported in the paper are saved in the FinalResults folder.

